by Cliff McNish
‘Just for a bit.’
‘That’s what you always say. Then it becomes hours.’
Rachel grinned. ‘I like being with them. Anyway, these are new. I’m going to introduce myself. And don’t call them feebles.’
The children on the rocking horse were the least talented children. Spell-gifts were not evenly distributed. After the initial rush of magic following the Awakening, it was discovered that a few children in each country had little magic – so little that it went virtually unnoticed. In a world where many children could fly effortlessly, others could still only dream of flying. None of these children could take part in the spell-games sprouting up all around, so Rachel had instead set up a programme where the most magical children spent time with them.
In the clouds above a boy the same age as the little girl sped by, way out of her reach. She longingly followed him until he passed over some hills.
‘Hey, who are you two?’ Rachel asked, rushing over and putting the brother and sister at ease. The girl lifted her arms, wanting to be picked up. The boy hung back shyly.
‘Get on,’ Rachel said to them both, lowering her back so they could climb aboard. Then, gently, she rose skyward.
‘I’m not scared,’ the boy said fiercely.
Rachel laughed. ‘I can see that!’
‘Up! Up!’ the little girl told her. ‘Go faster!’ As Rachel increased velocity, the girl cried out, ‘I’m falling. I’m falling off!’
‘No, you’re not,’ Rachel whispered into her ear. ‘I’ll never let you fall off!’
The girl gripped her neck, so happy to be paid attention by a child with magic.
For a while Rachel took directions from the brother and sister about what to do. They wanted to transform, so Rachel shifted halfway across the world. Soon the little girl and her brother were disguised in Asia, creeping in tangled forests, sneaking up on tiger cubs.
Finally, after Rachel had exhausted them with many kinds of magic, she took them back home. ‘I’ll come here tomorrow, if you like,’ she said.
The girl sucked her thumb. ‘Will you?’
‘Promise.’ Rachel fixed a time.
She left them with a wave and shifted back to the nursery, where she found Eric scowling. ‘Hey, what’s going on?’ he said. ‘I’m stuck out here, left like a twit by the kiddy swings. You said we were going to find the prapsies!’
‘We are, we are. Stop moaning and climb on.’ As Eric scrambled onto her back some of Rachel’s favourite spells, her shifters, eased forward into her mind. She felt her whole body supercharging with exhilaration as they loosened up all their tremendous power.
Eric saw her eyes light up: a thousand glistening shades of blue.
‘Get ready,’ she told him, balancing on her toes.
‘Oh-oh,’ Eric said. ‘A big trip, then. Where are you dragging us off to?’
‘Wouldn’t be a surprise if I gave it away.’
‘How far? Come on. Just tell me.’
‘Everest!’
‘Oh no, not the flipping Himalayas again!’ He seized her collar.
‘Are you ready or not?’
‘Yeah, yeah, I suppose.’ Eric took a deep breath and half-shut his eyes. ‘But you’d better keep me warm. I’m warning you, Rach. Last time we went there you nearly froze off my –’
Rachel launched into the chilly sky.
2
Griddas
Gultrathaca, pack-leader of the Griddas, entered the eye-chamber.
She was accompanied, as always, by her watchers. The watchers were spiders that lived inside pits criss-crossing her face. As Gultrathaca walked across the chamber floor, they flowed down her body, searching for traps. Some skittered over to the emerald green eye-window. Others lurked in Gultrathaca’s footfall, or waited at the doorway.
At fourteen feet tall, Gultrathaca was twice the size of a High Witch. Her imposing orange head was rectangular and all bone, bone impenetrable where it protected the brain. Like all Griddas she had no exposed nose or lips, no yielding part for an enemy to exploit. Nothing protruded from her face except five jaws. Four of these pointed forward. The fifth jaw was clamped to the back of her skull. Her eyes were vast, covering over half her face, and entirely solid – like shaped stone.
As Gultrathaca squeezed her body into the chamber, she said, ‘What are you waiting for? Join me.’ Seeing there was no danger, her watcher spiders swarmed happily onto her face.
Gultrathaca opened the eye-window – and gazed out in triumph.
Beneath her Thûn, greatest city of the Highs, lay in ruins. For thousands of centuries the High Witches had imprisoned the Griddas underground, while they built their eye-towers in the freedom of the skies. The first action the Griddas had taken after defeating the High Witches was to smash all those eye-towers. Knowing how much the High Witches loved them, the Griddas took each of the stones into their massive claws and crushed them.
Only one object remained intact to mark the reign of the Highs: this place, Heebra’s old home, the Great Tower itself.
The last of the fighting Highs lay at its base. In the end, when all the other towers had been taken, the surviving Witches had come here to make a final stand. For several days, incredibly, they had held Heebra’s tower against all the power and frenzy of the Griddas. Their bravery was soon forgotten. The eternally-falling grey snow of Ool covered up the High Witches. It settled over their intricate black dresses; it smothered their lifeless red faces and beloved soul-snakes. As Gultrathaca looked down now, only one High Witch remained, poking above her sisters. Piled atop them, she stared up as if in defiance of everything. Then her dead eyes too filled with snow, hiding the tattoos forever.
Gultrathaca intended to destroy the last of the towers. First, though, she wanted to walk amongst Heebra’s old possessions, her personal items, clawing them. And – there was another reason.
‘Come closer,’ she said. ‘Are you afraid?’
Jarius, a junior member of Gultrathaca’s pack, hung back from the eye-window. Having spent most of her life in tunnels, she had never been so far up. ‘How can you bear it?’ she asked, trembling.
‘We need to reach higher still to leave this world,’ Gultrathaca told her. ‘You can be trained to bear it, as I was.’
Jarius edged hesitantly forward. Like Gultrathaca, her body was all raw heaviness. Bony extensions erupted from her chest and shoulders. Her thick brown fur was untearable. Under it bunched layer upon layer of muscle. Each muscle was constantly gorged with blood – continually battle-ready, even in sleep. Such excess of power was of little benefit to mere survival in the tunnels under the cities, but there was a reason for it: the High Witches had deliberately bred the Griddas this way. In the event of an invasion of Ool, the Highs had always planned to retreat underground, where the Griddas would keep them safe. From birth that was all the Griddas were ever intended for. They could not recall a time when they had not lived, bred and died in the tunnels, waiting for the call to protect.
Jarius forced herself to step nearer the window. Outside it was dark, virtually black, but for her it was still too bright. Lowering her eye-shields, she looked across the sky. She did not look down; not even her own watcher spiders could bear to look down.
‘This is an unnatural place,’ she gasped, clutching Gultrathaca. ‘I – I am frightened.’
‘I know. Step closer.’
‘Do not make me do this.’
‘I must,’ said Gultrathaca. ‘We cannot stay in the home-tunnels if we wish to confront Larpskendya.’
Jarius shuffled up to the eye-window. For several minutes she stared outward. She could endure it, but only because she knew Gultrathaca would not allow her to step away.
‘Now put your head out,’ ordered Gultrathaca.
‘No!’ Jarius attempted to draw back, but Gultrathaca caught her face and bent it towards the ground. When Jarius tried to clamp her eye-shields shut, Gultrathaca held them open. In Jarius’s panic, new spiders gushed from her mouths: soldiers. The soldiers ran on
to Gultrathaca’s claw, trying to loosen the grip. To oppose them, Gultrathaca unleashed her own soldiers; soldier against soldier, the same number – a stalemate.
Gultrathaca made her stare down the tower walls for a long time. When she was finally released, Jarius threw herself to the back of the eye-chamber. She squeezed into an unlit corner, needing to feel safe. The soldiers disengaged. Both groups of spiders studied each other warily, professionally. Then they returned to their owner’s jaws.
‘It was necessary,’ said Gultrathaca.
‘Why!’
‘To show you what can be achieved. Look below. It is possible, now.’
Calming herself, Jarius approached the window again. She gazed at the faraway ground – only briefly, but she could do it. ‘Is this the treatment we can all expect?’ she demanded.
‘There will be worse to endure than this,’ Gultrathaca told her. ‘Knowing how dangerous we are, do you think the Wizards will allow us to live quietly in our tunnels? No. We are loose now, they know that. They will endeavour to destroy us immediately, while we are all still on Ool, contained in one place. That is why we must leave as soon as possible.’
‘And go where?’
‘Anywhere. Everywhere. I have seen the sun-fed creatures of other worlds, Jarius. You have no idea what strength we have compared to them.’
Jarius remained beside the eye-window. She knew it was important for her to impress Gultrathaca. She had already disgraced herself by being the last of the pack to leave the home tunnels. Worse, it had taken her countless attempts before she dared go onto the surface during daylight hours. Snow terrified her. When it first struck their bodies, the other pack-members had not screamed – but Jarius had.
I’ve been brought here as a test, she realized. If I perform badly this time the pack will desert me altogether.
Encouraged by her soldiers, Jarius thrust her face boldly out of the window. She made herself peer down.
‘There,’ said Gultrathaca. ‘It is not impossible, after all.’
‘No, I am used to it now.’
‘Are you?’
‘Yes,’ Jarius said firmly. To show how steady her nerve had become, she put her head further out. All her spiders deliberately took up relaxed postures, trying to show Gultrathaca that they were completely unconcerned.
Gultrathaca was not fooled by the spiders. She understood exactly how Jarius felt. Only a year earlier, a High Witch had come to drag her out of her own tunnel. How she had implored for mercy! Like the meekest of infants she had begged, rather than face that horror of light!
Yet Gultrathaca adapted – swiftly. Within a day she was helping the other pack-leaders adjust to the snow. And within a week she could fly, not well, not with the elegance of a High Witch, but even so. And finally the moment arrived when punishments were no longer required to make her leave the ground. The time came when Gultrathaca could open her eyes and actually enjoy it. That special morning Heebra herself had travelled alongside her. Like pack-sisters on a jaunt, they had circled the city.
Jarius, however, understood none of this. She pressed her face into the air, wincing at the touch of snowflakes.
Gultrathaca did nothing to put her at ease. All the other pack-sisters had been made to prove themselves. If Jarius could not cope with the eye-tower, she did not belong in the pack. There could be no compassion for those Griddas too frightened to leave the safety of the tunnels – not even for blood-relatives.
Jarius tried not to shiver. Her soldiers finally persuaded her to open her eye-shields a little more. While staring out, she said, ‘What was it really like? What was it like to be amongst the first Griddas to leave Ool and fight the Wizards?’
‘It was exhilarating.’ Gultrathaca laughed. ‘And terrifying.’
She recalled the moment. At the brink of the clouds, she and the other hand-picked Griddas had waited for Heebra’s command to move out into the emptiness of space. It was to have been a last decisive offensive against the Wizards. To support it the Griddas, for the first time, had been released from the tunnels of Ool to spread as much havoc as possible.
‘We weren’t meant for such places,’ Jarius said, waving in disgust at the sky. ‘We were intended for stone floors and ceilings, not this.’
‘That is what you think now,’ said Gultrathaca. ‘That is what the High Witches wanted you to believe. But you are more impressive than they ever knew.’
‘I will never fly. Not willingly.’
‘No,’ Gultrathaca said. ‘That is obvious.’
A few healer spiders fussed over Jarius’s eye-shields. They were checking for any damage Gultrathaca might have caused earlier. Finding none, they polished the hard eye surfaces.
‘I hear Calen, the new High Witch leader, hasn’t been found yet,’ Jarius said.
‘Leave Calen to me,’ Gultrathaca replied. ‘She is not the threat her mother Heebra once represented.’
‘But surely while Calen is still alive the imprisoned Highs will always be a threat. I don’t understand why you haven’t just killed all those left in the cells.’
‘That would be too easy,’ Gultrathaca said.
‘Too easy?’
‘You have no idea what the Highs denied us.’
Jarius regarded her blankly.
‘Tell me,’ Gultrathaca said, ‘what is the most repulsive aspect of a High Witch?’
‘Her soul-snake,’ Jarius replied at once.
‘You think so? At one time we possessed our own soul-snakes. We knew their friendship. Our ancestors were High Witches.’
Jarius stared at her in disbelief.
‘When I left the tunnels I learned a great deal,’ Gultrathaca said. ‘The Griddas were an experiment. The High Witches wanted something better adapted to the tunnels. So they took a few of their own Witches and put them into the dark to see what would happen. Our soul-snakes joined us underground. But after hundreds of generations we became so altered that the snakes could no longer bear the taste of our skin. They left us. Nor was this musculature’ – Gultrathaca raised her hugely swollen arms – ‘and the constant desire to use it, to fight, originally part of us. The Highs designed us this way.’
Jarius shook her head, not quite able to believe this. The senior pack members did not bother to share such information with her, given her low status.
‘We also mature far more quickly,’ said Gultrathaca. ‘The Highs wanted that, too; fast-breeders, capable like them of fertilizing our own eggs. That way they could produce a Gridda army whenever they needed it. Of course, we could never be allowed to grow in numbers that might threaten the High Witches. Imagine if we had wanted to share their food or their precious skies! But they found a solution for that. They culled us.’
‘Culled?’
‘Killed us off,’ Gultrathaca said. ‘We didn’t question why our pack-members never returned from the wars. Why should we have done? Weren’t they dying in glorious battles? The truth was that the Highs didn’t want us in their wars. They simply killed a certain amount of us from time to time. That kept our numbers in check. For the Highs it was the easiest solution.’
Jarius stepped away from the window. To die in such a manner filled her with such shame that she was unable to speak.
‘Now you see why I keep some High Witches in the worst of the tunnels,’ said Gultrathaca. ‘Let them fester. I’ll never release them.’
Jarius lowered her head, preoccupied with what she had learned.
‘The High Witches always despised our kind,’ Gultrathaca said, ‘but their reign is over. There will be no more culling. From now on the Griddas will breed in numbers even the Highs could not imagine.’
‘Won’t we fill the tunnels?’ Jarius asked. ‘They are already crowded.’
‘That doesn’t matter. You will soon learn to think beyond tunnel boundaries. You must, if we are to leave this world.’
‘How far can we get,’ Jarius said, ‘if the Wizards stand in our way?’
‘Not far, perhaps. We need to find
Orin Fen, the Wizard home world, and kill them there. Until we do, Larpskendya and his kind will always be safe – and we will not.’
‘The Highs never managed to find their home world.’
‘Perhaps they searched in the wrong way,’ Gultrathaca said. ‘Perhaps they needed the help of an infant.’
‘An infant?’
‘Heebra did not die at the hands of a Wizard, Jarius. A human child was responsible. The returning Highs spoke of talents they had never seen before in the Yemi boy. I believe he may have the skills we need to find Orin Fen. Or perhaps he has other gifts we can use.’ Gultrathaca joined Jarius by the eye-window. ‘You have been gazing down for many minutes, without needing to look away,’ she said. ‘Had you noticed?’
‘No,’ Jarius admitted. ‘Is that so?’ She realized many of her watchers had genuinely forgotten their earlier fears. They now stared with simple curiosity at the snow pulsing against the stone and glass. Springing back and forth from the window, Jarius found that she was able to look out without flinching. There was still fear, but she could master it.
Jarius is ready, Gultrathaca thought. Or as ready as she could ever be.
‘Our youngsters will adapt better than us,’ she said. ‘They will barely know the tunnels at all, Jarius. It will be so much easier for them.’ She sniffed, picking out the distinctive aroma of Gridda infants. As she had requested, one pack had been driven to the surface. ‘I wanted you to be here for this,’ she told Jarius. ‘For the first time Griddas are due to be brought directly from the birthing chambers to see the world. Let’s observe how they behave.’
A pack of recently hatched Griddas showed at a tunnel entrance near the base of the eye-tower. The first one to emerge howled when the daylight touched her eyes. She would not have come further except that her sisters shoved her from beneath. Finally all twenty-four blood-related sisters were on the surface. They huddled together, beating at the falling snow as if it was trying to strike them. A searing wind blew into their faces. The sensation of that wind was so unusual and so appalling to the young Griddas that all their spiders acted as though they were being attacked. They formed hopeless little shields around their owners’ faces, trying to use their bodies to fend off the winds.